Any new film releases?

[Bobby Henderson]

How to save movies in archives? On hard disk or 35 mm film?

Most major movie productions will produce a film-out onto a 35mm print for long term archival storage, even if the entire movie was shot and post produced using digital methods.

Why not both? Hard disk - cheap and accessible (until it isn't). 35mm - expensive but permanent (whatever that means, and until there's a warehouse fire).
Also, there's paper prints: https://blogs.loc.gov/now-see-hear/2...nt-collection/
Or you could print out digital files as binary code, on paper.
Lots of options!

Digital data has to be migrated periodically to new volumes. I'm not aware of any data storage technology that can reliably last for decades the way a properly stored archive film print can last. Optical discs can develop "laser rot." Magnetic hard drives degrade over time. Solid state drives are even less stable for long term storage.

Aside from possible physical issues with the data storage media many data storage standards are killed off by frequent changes to device interface standards. Someone could dig out an old data tape drive and stack of data tapes. Even if the data on the tapes was still any good a person might have a hell of a time trying to get the tape drive to work unless he had a working vintage PC laying around.

I'm not a big fan of printing movie imagery on paper. Even with the smoothest of paper stocks you'll have at least some dot gain, which would translate into resolution loss.

[Frank Cox]

I've mentioned this here before but I'll bring it up again.

I don't see what's so damn difficult about archiving digital data. I have data on this computer in front of me some of which goes back to the mid-70's and a lot of which originated in the 80's. It's been on, probably, at least several dozen computers over the course of time and I can still access it today. If I want to read a document that was created with Paperback Writer on the Commodore 64 or Microsoft Multiplan on CP/M, I can load the relevant emulation program and here's my document right in front of me. If I want to access a document that's in an obsolete format on a regular basis I can screenshot it (if it's graphical) or convert it to a text file if it's not and then I have the document in a modern format too.

And... I'm not a professional archivist. My data has migrated with me through many computers and many years; it's been backed up in several ways throughout that time using methods ranging from floppy disks to fileservers, and it's indexed so I can actually what I'm looking for with a minimum of fuss. I have a pretty good idea of what I have in my head, and if I lose something that's what filename and word searches and indexes are for.

A large archive with a staff and a budget should be able to manage at least that much; it's ten sheets of paper or flash drive and why would it matter which?

I can see where the fascination with having everything locked down with cryptographic keys that are made inaccessible to end users will make the creation of a usable archive more difficult but in that case the onus is on the owner of the data to provide it in a non-encrypted, usable and forward-sustainable format for archiving. But that aside, I don't see why the mere fact that the data is digital makes it so much more difficult to archive. Paper archives require large warehouses with temperature and humidity control. Digital archives require occasional migration to newer media. Neither is something that you can just throw into an unheated garage or basement and expect it to be in good shape years later.

[Randy Stankey]

A while back, I heard that the Library of Congress was trying to develop a method of photogravure on glass to store data.

I don't know how far they got with that idea but, to me, it sounds like the only real way to store data, long term, for the ages.

[Ed Gordon]

Can Movies be Archived on DNA?

Thu, 01/28/2021 - 09:37 -- Nick Dager

Can movies and TV shows be successfully archived on DNA? That question has been raised by an ad hoc working group of the international JPEG Committee. While that and many other questions remain unanswered, one thing is known: researchers recently stored an episode of the German Netflix TV series Biohackers on DNA.Can movies and TV shows be successfully archived on DNA? That question has been raised by an ad hoc working group of the international JPEG Committee. While that and many other questions remain unanswered, one thing is known: researchers recently stored an episode of the German Netflix TV series Biohackers on DNA.

For a century the challenge has been to find a medium to archive motion pictures and TV shows that was both efficient, durable and cost effective. For much of that century, the most reliable answer has been to archive on film. As Siegfried Foessel, head of the Department of Moving Picture Technologies at Fraunhofer IIS, and a member of the ad hoc group called JPEG DNA explains, “Film could be preserved for fifty to one hundred years and, under good conditions, even for five hundred years. In consequence, all archives put film reels on their shelves in a cooled environment. With the advent of digital cameras, digital production and digital projection, film became obsolete for image and movie workflows and during the direct commercialization process.”

Thus, film became an exotic foreigner in the movie industry and was too expensive as an archival medium because it requires specific handling for lossless storing of digital data. Various other methods were investigated to store digital data for a long time, without constantly consuming energy. But no one could really fulfill the specific requirements for long-term preservation of motion pictures.

“And now?” says Foessel. “A new idea came up. The medium with one of the highest densities of information is DNA. So, researchers investigated – not for the movie industry, but for medical applications – how to synthesize DNA molecules. And other researchers looked for new applications to use the DNA for data storage.”

That led to the storage of the Biohackers episode on DNA, which is essentially where things stand today.

The high density of information storage is not the sole advantage, said Foesssel. “DNA from previous lifeforms on earth – thousands of years old – have been found, not handled especially carefully and, yet can be read even today,” he said. “The suggests that the longevity of DNA is proven.”

All these aspects induced the JPEG committee to investigate if this new storage medium is a realistic solution for archiving digital data and the work continues. The JPEG DNA group has issued its first report, which can be downloaded here: http://ds.jpeg.org/documents/jpegdna...quirements.pdf

Also, this YouTube video explains how the process works and talks about the series Biohackers and how it is amplifying the ongoing research: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMYgjOHgHxc

Source: https://www.digitalcinemareport.com/...e-archived-dna

[David J Hilsgen]

From what I heard there's over 30 -70mm prints of Death on the Nile sitting and waiting for the February 11th release date

[Van Dalton]

I'm not aware of any data storage technology that can reliably last for decades the way a properly stored archive film print can last. Optical discs can develop "laser rot." Magnetic hard drives degrade over time. Solid state drives are even less stable for long term storage.

A while back, I heard that the Library of Congress was trying to develop a method of photogravure on glass to store data. I don't know how far they got with that idea but, to me, it sounds like the only real way to store data, long term, for the ages.

Presently there is M-disc, which is allegedly rated to retain data for at least 1000 years. (According to their marketing propaganda, anyways. Note the keyword "allegedly".) It does this by writing data to a hard thin film layer between the reflective layer and substrate, literally melting holes in the film rather than shading marks in a cyanine or azo dye track, making actual pits and lands rather than printed dots. So since there's no dye involved the fading problem is eliminated and the recorded disc is physically more similar to a stamped DVD or Blue disc than a conventional dye-track disc. They otherwise have all the other advantages (or disadvantages, depending on your viewpoint) of optical disc formats. How well they cope with reflective-layer oxidation and binder degradation over time remains to be seen.

Personally I've found they work better for playback on older (mid-2000s) and lower-end DVD-Video players that would play stamped discs fine but freak out when fed a dye disc. This is probably because the reflectivity is closer to a pressed disc than feasible using dye, and thus more compatible with early DVD drive lasers/optics, most of which have no doubt darkened past tolerance by now from age and wear.

I just wish they were available in CD-R format. Perhaps something about the physical M-disc structure prevented them working correctly with infrared CD lasers thus they never made it to production?

[Peter Mork]

From what I heard there's over 30 -70mm prints of Death on the Nile sitting and waiting for the February 11th release date

Thank you for getting this train back on the rails.
Will there be 35mm prints too?

And I was kidding about printing out digital code on sheets of paper. Maybe. I refuse to get sucked into this archival jazz. Nobody here will be around to find out what worked and what didn't,

[Marcel Birgelen]

Thank you for getting this train back on the rails.
Will there be 35mm prints too?

Or rather the boat back in the water?

AFAIK there are no 35mm releases planned, only D-Cinema and 70mm.

And I was kidding about printing out digital code on sheets of paper. Maybe. I refuse to get sucked into this archival jazz. Nobody here will be around to find out what worked and what didn't,

So, that's a valid reason to ignore the archival of our current knowledge and cultural heritage for those who come after us? I won't be around, so screw them?

If those that came before us would have done the same, we would still be stuck in the dark ages. Anything resembling 70mm film would be forever out of our reach...

Archival of the digital data we produce is a serious challenge. I've got data on data carriers around here, I don't have the means to read anymore...

[Peter Mork]

No, this discussion was about present-day film prints. It got hijacked.

The archiving debate has been done over and over. I didn't say we should not save things, but how it's done is the problem, and what will last and still be usable is unknown to us. I think doing it multiple ways is a good idea. We can do our best. That's all.

[Marcel Birgelen]

It's a discussion forum for something after all... from one discussion follows the other, if you kill that in its infancy, then you kill the discussion and the whole purpose of a discussion forum flies out of the window. It's not like the traffic on this site is unmanageable and if a sideline discussion gets sufficient traction, you can still split it off in a separate topic, which sometimes happens...

[Sascha Roll]

Director Edgar Wright replied to my comment on Instagram about 35mm prints for his new movie "LAST NIGHT IN SOHO" :

Screenshot_20210910_211043.jpg

[Kieran Hall]

Might have to try pushing our luck a bit with Universal...!

[Geoff Jones]

Last Night in Soho is getting a limited 35mm release this weekend. I found 8 U.S. theaters with showtime listings... Sadly, none in Colorado.

Here's a possibly incomplete list of theaters showing Last Night in Soho on 35mm film:

American Cinemateque - Santa Monica, CA
BAM Rose Cinemas - Brooklyn, NY
Belcourt - Nashville, TN
Coolidge Corner - Brookline, MA
Music Box - Chicago, IL
New Beverly - Los Angeles, CA
South Lamar - Austin, TX
Village East - New York, NY

[Leo Enticknap]

I am sick and tired of Christopher Nolan.films and I think the general public is also getting there too. Tenent was not a very good movie..

I quite liked Dunkirk, but agree completely about Tenet and most of his other recent stuff.

The problem is that most of the movie makers who are actively looking for releases on film are arthouse folks, possibly because they believe that the arthouse audience cares about such things, but the mainstream movie audience does not. As an actual movie, The Hateful Eight was, IMHO, the weakest of Tarantino's films by a clear margin. And as for Licorice Pizza, the trailer alone is enough to convince me to stay away from that, even if he has 70mm nitrate IB prints made of it! That would not be enough to redeem three hours of narcissistic teenagers in the 1970s looking depressed and smoking pot.

[Steve Guttag]

I think Tenet will gain in appreciation over time. It has a wicked concept to it (a forward and backward timeline running simultaneously). As for Nolan...there are movies of his that I like and movies of his that I don't care for. Tenet is one that I'd like to see again and perhaps a few times more. I also think I'd prefer to see it in as big a 70mm venue as possible too.

I haven't seen most of PTA's movies but he can certainly make some good ones. QT movies, for me also vary. I would NOT have used UP70 as my one and only use of 70mm, at that stage of the game nor did H8 really benefit from UP70. He did something because he could, not because he should.

As for shooting in 65mm...by all means...everyone should do that!